Irving Green, the co-founder of Mercury Records (pictured above
with Quincy Jones), helped break colour barriers in popular music
while turning his small independent company into one of the music
industry's major labels. Green, who had a successful second career
in real estate development, died on July 1st of natural causes at
Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, said his grandson,
Jonathan Ross. "This is one of the pioneers, the last of the
great entrepreneurs," said Lou Dennis, who was product manager
of Smash/Fontana Records, a subsidiary of Mercury Records, in the
1960s. "Today the record companies are all owned by big conglomerates.
This is a guy that started a label in Chicago, and it became one
of the major labels in the United States."

Founded in Chicago in 1944 by Green, Berle Adams and Arthur Talmadge,
Mercury Records quickly rose to prominence by using an alternative
form of promotion to generate hit records. Instead of depending
on radio airplay to promote new releases as did the major labels
- RCA Victor, Columbia, Decca and Capitol - Green used the distributors
of jukeboxes to spur interest in new releases: record buyers would
first hear a new Mercury record on the jukebox rather than on the
radio. "It was a cheaper alternative means for artists to become
popular," Ross said. "That alternative route quickly got
Mercury up to the level of the existing powerhouses."

In 2006 the Pacific Southwest Region of the National Academy of
Television Arts & Sciences honoured Green for his multi-racial
promotion of musicians by inducting him into its Gold Circle. Green
was among a number of record producers who lobbied to change the
American Federation of Music rule that prohibited live performances
of music on television. After the rule was repealed in 1948, Green
convinced Ed Sullivan to feature jazz and blues artists on his Sunday
night variety show, and Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, Dinah Washington
and other Mercury artists made their TV debuts. "I think we
were very instrumental in breaking down some of the colour line,"
Green said in an interview with the Desert Sun in February. "We
had no colour line. Artists like Dinah Washington or the Platters
or Clyde McPhatter, we had no colour restrictions of any kind."
In 1957, when Nat King Cole's musical variety show was having ratings
and sponsorship problems, Green arranged to have Frankie Laine appear
on the show without pay - reportedly the first time white and black
singers performed together on national television. In 1964, Quincy
Jones became the first top black executive at a major label when
Green made him vice president in charge of artists and repertoire.
Jones, who was arranging songs for Dinah Washington when he first
met Green, told the Desert Sun in February that Green had "broad
taste. It was across the board, and I think that's what we shared
- that diversified taste." For his part, Green said: "I
was brought up in a mixed neighbourhood, and that stayed with me
forever."

Born in 1916, in Brooklyn, New York, Green grew up on the west
side of Chicago. Although his birth certificate lists his first
name as Irvin, he went by Irving. He attended St. John's University
but dropped out after two years to work during the Depression. After
working for his father's paint contracting company, he went into
the sheet-metal business with a partner. They made hydraulic presses
and pressed records. "In those days, 10-inch records sold for
at least 79 cents," Green said in the Desert Sun interview.
"We were pressing them for others, and we decided to press
them for ourselves." When the use of shellac was restricted
during World War II, Green's company produced an innovative plastic
record. "It actually was an unbreakable 10-inch record, whereas
shellac was breakable," he said. "That's what started
us in the music business. We knew how to make the record, and there
was a tremendous shortage of records at the time."

In 1952, Green and five other record industry chief executives
formed the Recording Industry Association of America, whose mission
was to "foster a business and legal climate that supports and
promotes its members' creativity and financial vitality." As
a record producer and distributor, Green was known for allowing
artists to own their copyrights. "I wanted to stay in the recording
business. I let them have their own publishing," he told the
Desert Sun. "That's what brought some artists to us, I think.
They knew we weren't in any side business. That travels in the industry
quite quick. I did not publish any of the music we recorded. I just
felt, let them own their own and I would show them how to copyright."

After Green sold Mercury in the late 1960s, he continued to run
the label for five years. He then turned his hobby of building homes
into a second career. In partnership with developer Bill Levitt
(of Levittown, Pennsylvania, fame), he built 18,000 homes in southern
Iran. When the Shah of Iran was driven out of the country in 1979,
Green and Levitt's company was taken over by the new government
and Green and his associates were provided safe passage back to
the United States. Green then started Landau Development in Palm
Springs, which has built hundreds of homes in the area. He continued
to make weekly site inspections until about a week before he died.

Green is survived by his wife, Pamela; two daughters, Roberta Hunt
and Kelli Ross; three grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

(Dennis
McLellan, The L.A. Times)

Irvin[g] Green, co-founder
of Mercury Records: born February 6th, 1916 - died July 1st, 2006